Foreign Affairs committee  An important point of clarification on the incident being discussed is that the Russians never entered Canadian airspace. They approach Canadian airspace, which triggers our NORAD mechanisms.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think it's important to continue those processes, but those of us who are involved in questions involving Arctic governance would like to see an understanding that there are several points of cooperation possible with our Russian counterparts. We'd like to see that emphasized i

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll leave that to NORAD and the people at National Defence.

Foreign Affairs committee  The lack of funding does make that difficult. We're currently working with some partners to work with the permanent participants to identify specifically what their needs are around capacity. To put it into perspective, it's one staff person working out of their home that represe

Foreign Affairs committee  In terms of when we're talking about Canada domestically, there are imported processes included in the land claims agreement that provide processes to deal with this. One thing we're doing is working with communities around how to negotiate impact benefit agreements. We are hol

Foreign Affairs committee  I would add that it's important when we are talking about the cruise ship industry in the north to recognize that only 10% of Canadian Arctic waters are charted. Increasingly as the ice recedes you're seeing cruise ships going further and further off the charted routes to find th

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. We're at the beginning of a study that will look at exactly this question. As a starting point, it's important to learn from what has happened in Alaska, with their robust cruise ship industry going into remote communities.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think first of all it's important to remember that the Arctic Council is the first organization to have a permanent place in its design for the representatives of indigenous groups. There are six there. The challenge is that when we're talking about meetings that are taking p

Foreign Affairs committee  I think that the challenge of the Arctic Council is to find those areas of convergence and collaboration. I think that one area that everyone agrees on, every process that I've seen coming out on thinking forward for both the Canadian and American chairs, is the effective impleme

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think we do. The Arctic Council is making strides towards improving its communications. At the process that convened in January, this was one thing on which everyone could agree. Northern communities are unaware, in large part, of what the council is doing, and their assessment

Foreign Affairs committee  The dispute between RAIPON and the Russian government is over the extraction of resources in RAIPON 's traditional territory. There's a great deal of diversity in the economic development of the Arctic. Russia receives about 60% of its GNP from its Arctic territories. Russia has

Foreign Affairs committee  RAIPON represents 250,000 indigenous peoples in over 21 different types of what we would call first nations groups. It is a permanent participant in the Arctic Council, but it is also involved with several other international organizations, and domestically. It is not just a perm

Foreign Affairs committee  I would have to agree with what both my colleagues have stated. One thing that I would like to emphasize to the committee is that it's not just about communicating and having Canadians learn about the Arctic. It's also about making sure that those who live and work every day in

Foreign Affairs committee  This question of public education on Arctic issues is huge. It's something our organization deals with every day. One of our main priorities is to improve Canadians' understanding of the Arctic. The situation is a little more positive. Based on our public opinion data, we found